Honest and Real
by GraysonStopBeingADick
Summary: Clarke is processing life on Earth up to and including the events in Spacewalker. Bellamy and co make appearances. Compilation of one-shots that occur in vague post-canon time.
1. In Memoriam

Pain and harm are not her intent. And anyway, this isn't real pain. Clarke's felt real pain now: running through caves and forests without shoes, slamming into water at great speeds, being separated from her loved ones in all manner of ways. In comparison, the quick bite of hot metal into flesh is forgettable.

Forgettable. That's why she's doing this. While the pain should fade, she doesn't want her memories to do the same. These tiny tick marks and circles represent real people with real lives who deserve to be remembered. Clarke thought about her memorial medium for a while before settling on the small brands. Her time at Mount Weather had made it clear- graves stayed put even if people moved and your clothing and tokens could be taken away from you. The only truly permanent item she had was her body.

She thought about tattoos but she wasn't sure what she would use for ink or the best way to sanitize the process. She would've had to ask a Grounder and a) this was personal and b) she wasn't sure her intent would be clear. She thought about the Grounder warrior, the one whose throat she slit before escaping. Her scars were both similar and dissimilar to his. Both chronicled the wear's experiences with death but hers, hers were not a trophy; they were a memorial, a warning.

So here Clarke sat, late at night, by a small fire on the edge of the common area of Camp Jaha with her pant leg rolled up and her list and her two narrow bits of metal. On her earlier shift she had sanitized both the small metal tubing and the flat piece. There were already a few lines on her left leg, just above her ankle, well above where her boot would rest. These were the people close to her who had died: her father, Wells, Charlotte, Anya. Clarke heated the metal tubing and pressed a small circle under the lines to represent the rest of the fallen 100, the injured she couldn't save but still felt responsible for. She knew that more would most likely be added to this tally. Her list for her right leg was much longer: Finn, Atom, the Grounder guard, a circle for the Grounder Army…These were people she had killed. She didn't want to forget them either. Clarke acknowledged death as a part of life but she refused to accept killing as a norm.

She only had a few more brands to go when she heard footsteps approaching. She knew who it was when the person paused and slid to the ground next to her. The Arkers ignored her unless she was in medical, her mother was sleeping, and most of the remnants of the 100 in camp would have read her isolation and concentration as a do not disturb sign.

"What the hell are you doing Princess?" Bellamy's words were low but firm and surprisingly non accusatory. Her eyes left the fire where her circle brand was warming and met his.

"I needed a way to remember, to physically see and remind myself." Clarke's hand hovered over the new burns. "It's sterile and I'm almost done. I'm not trying to hurt myself."

"I know." The certainty in his voice had her tilting her head, indicating he should expand on his statement. "If you wanted to hurt yourself, you know the best and most efficient ways to do that." They sat in silence for a bit before she picked up the brand and pressed a small circle into her right leg.

"Princess, you know that some of these were in self defense, right?" Clarke nods and continues to watch the fire.

"I just don't want to forget what I can become when I need to. It may be helpful to our survival but I don't want to just survive, I want to live. And I don't know that I can do that without admitting how ruthless I have been…can be…it feels like lying." Clarke finished her branding and covered the marks with a damp cloth.

"I'm ready to start being honest about things," she continued. "We call this peace with the Grounders but really it's more like a tentative truce. They see us as children and the scout group but really we're capable adults who were sacrificed and got lucky. Mom says they're establishing a new order on earth but they're still guided by rules and a governing body designed for a completely different environment." Clarke paused and glanced at the man sitting next to her. He was staring into the fire but she knew he was listening. "I told Finn I loved him before I killed him. And it wasn't really a lie; I loved him but not the way he wanted. In the end I loved him the same way I loved Charlotte, the way I love Raven. And Jasper and Monty and how it's killing me that they're so far away and I can't be there for them. I'm tired of lying and half-truths to soften the weight. If we're ever going to really live down here, we're going to have to face reality."

"So your marks, those are honest and real?" He asked quietly.

"Yes."

"Just promise me that you won't prematurely put anyone on that list." Bellamy's hand stretched out and he brushed the cloth covering her new brands. "There was a time when you thought I was dead, there were a few times I thought you were dead, there were a lot of times we thought Jasper was going to die. Let the people you mark down truly deserve it."

"I promise." Clarke rested her hand over his, admiring the differences in size and color while knowing that they shared the same bones, veins, and muscles. "I still need you Bellamy. To get back our people, to help the Arkers understand. But I'm starting this new honesty thing and I think there's more to us than partners in leadership now." She paused for a reaction and when she saw none, she kept talking.

"Do you know why there's no list for the people I've saved? The Ravens and the Lincolns? It's because I get to see them and talk to them and be a part of their lives. I was so scared that I wasn't going to get to do that with you anymore, that you were going to go on this list and there's really no way for me to tell you how…thankful I am that you're not."

"Let's just promise each other we won't die without the other. Does that work?" he half grinned in the campfire light. "If it makes you feel better Princess, I think about kissing you in the most inappropriate times." Bellamy stood and offered her a hand. "Are you done here? We should get to sleep. Rebellious young leaders need their rest before planning suicide missions to rescue their friends."

She took his hand and stood gingerly, a little sore from sitting cross-legged for such a long time. Clarke smiled, "Bellamy Blake are you going to walk me home?"


	2. Practice

These days repetition is relaxing. Routine and repetitive motion offer comfort and establish that today is special because it is just the newest day. Clarke would rather have three weeks of laundry duty, scrubbing until her hands are permanently wrinkled raisins than deal with each unique broken bone and cut. Fortunately, they rotate the majority of their non-specified people through duties every week so she can help without getting swamped in stitches and bandages.

Clarke looks for repetition in her free time too. She eagerly anticipates the wave of calm that washes over her when she achieves habitual action. She begins to practice, starting with tasks and hobbies she already knows. She trains with Octavia some mornings, relishing in the rhythmic beat of running laps around the fence. Their steps, their breaths, their heartbeats, all falling into a comforting pulse in minutes. She moves rocks in a nearby stream with Miller. The plan is to build small dams to create pools deep enough to bathe and swim in. She enjoys the work because it's both productive and habitual, rock after rock fitting together in a visually appealing manner. By the time they finish the third pool Miller is faster to smile and her arms have defined muscle under a golden tan.

After a while, Clarke begins to explore other options. If practice can make perfect, why not learn a new skill every now and then? First she approaches Liani Sinclair, a 12-year-old Bellamy has taken under his wing. The Sinclair family also worked in textiles and lived in sector B-17 and was the closest thing to a cousin he had. Liani was thrilled to meet Octavia in person once they were reunited on the ground. Like the Blake siblings, she was talented with needle and thread but it was her other textile skill that inspired Clarke.

Liani, with her nimble young fingers, could knit hats in hours and scarves in days. During the past winter she had gifted Raven a burgundy cowl, knit from chunky hand spun wool, dyed with bright but inedible berries. Even now in the heat of summer it remained in sight, looped around her work belt. Clarke envied the ease that the young girl had, slipping the soft yarn from needle to needle during conversation. She appreciated anyone who could casually create in the face of their current existence. So she asked for lessons.

It wasn't hard to explain at first. Liani was a common sight, shadowing the Blakes and their close acquaintances during chores and braiding Harper and Octavia's hair in the evenings. She was thrilled that Clarke Griffin, THE Clarke Griffin wanted to learn something from her. She patiently explains how to cast on the original stitches, looping the rough wool around wooden sticks the thickness of Clarke's fingers. They sit in the afternoon sun, their backs against the Ark, speaking quietly. Liani is letting her borrow an older set of needles, they are the same width but mismatched in length and color. Dented and worn, they are one of the few possessions that made it through the crash but they are ugly compared to the smooth grain of her new needles, carved by one Bellamy Blake.

Clarke is frustrated when it turns out that knitting is something you truly have to practice to be good at. It is repetitive but she can't take her eyes, let alone her mind, off her work without dropping a stitch or getting her yarn tangled. She finally finishes a washcloth and grumbles at the not-quite-square shape but the girl assures her that it will even out over time. It's silly but she wants to keep this fiber interlude quiet. Clarke fields enough questions about everything else in her life she wants to keep something to herself. For all her gifts in command, she enjoys time alone. And as she focuses on feeding the stitches with her left hand and picking them up with her right she realizes that she has enjoyed the one on one time she's spent with her people. Her...friends. As she improves, Liani teaches the leader the basics: knit, purl, cables, yarn overs, the building blocks to intricate patterns. Clarke still has to look at what she's doing but at least there's a consistent rhythm to her movements. She's still not allowed to use anything but the cast off wool but her washcloths have intentional texture now.

After a month of lessons, Clarke barters her time tending gardens for a small skein of cotton. Liani teaches her the basics of socks. A few weeks later the blonde completes her first hat, medium weight with simple decorative cables and strands of her own hair intermittently woven in during the knitting process. She wears it to bed every night. It'll probably take months of constant knitting for her to attain the nonchalant knitting that Liani treats as second nature and she might never be able to combine stitches into beautiful designs the way the younger girl does, but she's at peace, sitting by a fire, her second hand needles gently clicking below the hum of conversation.

One afternoon Clarke is working on a small piece when Liani finally asks her why she was so interested in learning in the first place. The leader is grateful she has to keep her eyes focused on the small yarn and needles in her hands but she explains anyway. Explains her constant craving for routine and repetition and regularity. She likes this because she can practice and be productive and be practical, all at the same time. Liani smiles excited that her effortless hobby is something to value. But in her infinite 12-year-old wisdom she declares that practice can't make perfect because there's no such thing as perfect. Practice only makes you better and that should be reason enough.

A week later, Clarke finds a pair of hand carved needles on her bed, accompanied only with a charcoal note labeling them "Princess". As she rolls the wood in her palms she thinks that maybe practice makes better is enough. And maybe what she's really been doing is practicing being a person again.


End file.
